Adorama Improves Product Listing Ads Performance with Adlucent

Adlucent is able to quickly identify top performing products, adjust bids at the product level and optimize surrounding ad text (product title and description) for maximum performance and efficiency.

Austin, Texas — September 6, 2012 — Adlucent announced today that Adorama, one of the nation's largest photo retail and mail order suppliers, has significantly increased its Product Listing Ads (PLA) performance using Adlucent's unique Precision Product Targeting approach. Adorama, which added PLAs to its paid search program in mid-2011, partnered with Adlucent to quickly target every product in its catalog with bids driven by clearly identified customer intent. In conjunction with Adorama's text ad performance analytics, Adlucent is able to quickly identify top performing products, adjust bids at the product level and optimize surrounding ad text (product title and description) for maximum performance and efficiency.

One year later, as a result of this innovative strategy, Adorama has achieved a year-over-year average clickthrough rate (CTR) increase of 176% and average conversion rate (CVR) increase of 100%. Adorama has also seen PLA revenue contribution spike dramatically: 63% in the last quarter alone. Additionally, using Adlucent’s click funnel analysis by channel, Adorama has determined that PLA clicks impacted almost half of its non-brand revenue.

"Whether it’s conducting a search online or asking a salesperson a question, listening to the details of your customers is always the highest priority. This allows a business to continually innovate, adapt and go to market effectively, while providing a personalized customer experience. Adorama has always excelled in providing a detailed level of service, all the way down to the product level, matched to an individual shopper’s needs, both offline and online," said Brian Green, Vice President of Marketing at Adorama. "Adlucent's expertise and solutions for online retail make them a strong partner for our company, in helping us market more efficiently and gain insight on a product level. We are really excited to be capitalizing on PLAs on Google Shopping early in their lifecycle and ensuring that our ads are exceptionally targeted and relevant in order to maintain continuous CTR and CVR growth ahead of CPC increases."

Working with forward-thinking retail partners like Adorama, Adlucent was the first in the industry to create a targeting methodology allowing bid optimization at the product level rather than aggregate targets. Through Adlucent’s Precision Product Targeting, predictive bidding is managed at the most granular levels possible – keyword-level for PPC, product-level for PLAs — resulting in spend allocation only to top performing products.

"Through Adlucent's product-level approach, PLAs have proven to be an additive and efficient revenue channel for Adorama," said Michael Griffin, founder and CTO of Adlucent. "Adorama needed to see performance and efficiency from PLAs on par with PPC to justify their continued investment in this media, and they have surpassed their goals. As the popularity of PLAs grows, so will their cost. Having the power to quickly scrutinize and optimize performance of each product at a micro-segmented level will give them the granular control they need to stay competitive, yet cost-effective."

Google’s Head of Platforms for Shopping, Jon Venverloh, said, “Product Listing Ads provide a powerful opportunity for retailers to acquire new customers. We’re happy to see Adlucent and Adorama driving outsized returns on ad spend in the new Google Shopping experience.”

Adlucent's Precision Product Targeting approach to PLAs on Google Shopping management builds on the company's ten-year history of delivering measurable performance and efficiency for retail brands like Anthropologie, Buy.com, Jewelry Television, Oriental Trading Company and Free People. Now, as retailers prepare for the shift to Google Shopping in 2012, Adlucent's SKU-level targeting and optimization offers powerful synergies between PLA and paid search ads when they are managed together, including leveraging product-level data and intelligence across both ad types and using PPC to funnel traffic to PLAs (and vice versa).

About Adorama

Adorama, is one of the world’s largest photo-specialty, imaging & electronics retailers serving customers for over 30 years. Adorama has grown from it flagship, NYC, store to a global destination for photography and imaging. Adorama’s vast product offerings now encompass home entertainment, mobile computing, and professional audio, while its services include an in-house photo lab (AdoramaPix) and pro equipment rental (Adorama Rental Company) and its award winning Adorama Learning Center, which offers free Learning Resources for photographers.

Adorama is listed as Forbes.com "Best of the Web", Internet Retailers Top 100, and in Consumer Reports as a leading Photography & Electronic Retailer.

Visit http://www.adorama.com.

About Adlucent Adlucent is a marketing technology and analytics agency based in Austin, Texas, focusing solely on retail and eCommerce companies. Leveraging its Deep Search® search marketing and retail analytics platform, Adlucent’s experts help the smartest retailers acquire new customers and grow revenue profitably through digital marketing. Expanding from a decade-long relationship with Amazon.com, Adlucent’s current client base includes more than 130 retail brands such as Oriental Trading Company, Buy.com, Anthropologie, Jewelry Television, and Free People.